It is increasingly common for a person to own multiple computing devices, such as a smart phone, a desktop computer, and a laptop computer. Many people that own multiple devices desire to have at least some of their files to be stored on each of their devices. One approach to accomplish this is for a user to email a file from one of her devices (the “source” device) to an online account, such as an email account. Then, the user operates another of her devices (or “destination” device) to access the online account and initiate the download of that file to the destination device. The user performs this series of steps for each of her destination devices.
Another approach is to physically connect two devices (for example, via a USB ports on the respective devices) and instruct the destination device to access the source device and retrieve a copy of the file from the source device. The user would have to perform this series of steps for each of her destination devices.
Both approaches require significant and laborious user interaction. Also, to the extent that the user wishes for a file to be transferred to multiple destination devices, both approaches require repetitive (or at least very similar) steps, such as accessing an online account or connecting two devices with a (e.g., USB) cord. Furthermore, both approaches require the user to physically handle and operate each of her destination devices.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.